'Flubbed Completely': A Company Mistakenly Sent a Picture of Cartoon Duck to Employees When Laying Them Off Payments company Stripe had some communication issues when conducting layoffs this week.
By Erin Davis
News of layoffs has seemed nonstop in January, with CNN, Citigroup, and Microsoft all cutting roles this week alone. Usually, these notices are pretty standard—heavy on the legal wording, and light on the cartoons.
But that wasn't the case at Stripe, a payments software company that laid off 300 employees on Monday. Some employees in the various roles affected (product, operations, engineering) were notified by an illustration of a cartoon duck, Business Insider reports. The dates on the termination notices were also incorrect.
Related: 'We Will Have Job Eliminations': Starbucks CEO Announces Corporate Layoffs Will Begin Soon
The illustration was sent as a PDF attachment and said, "US-Non-California Duck." Business Insider received a picture of the yellow duck from employees on a Blind chat.
"The comms to those laid off were flubbed completely," one employee reportedly wrote.
Software company Stripe laid off 300 employees this week and mysteriously and confusingly included a photo of a duck in the email that notified workers they'd been let go.
— Mark C. Crowley (@MarkCCrowley) January 23, 2025
While this was clearly a preventable gaffe, the far bigger one was ##Stripe telling 300 human beings they'd… pic.twitter.com/oeIIWhkwOu
A Stripe representative told Business Insider that follow-up emails went out to affected employees.
"I apologize for the error and any confusion it caused," wrote Rob McIntosh, the company's chief people officer. "Corrected and full notifications have since been sent to all impacted Stripes."
Related: Citigroup Eliminated More Jobs This Week. Here Are the Roles Affected.
Stripe is valued at $70 billion in the private markets, per CNBC.
Despite the cuts, McIntosh said the company is "not slowing down hiring" and expects to increase its workforce by 17% this year to 10,000.
